Cartoons

ARTICLES ABOUT CARTOONS BY DATE - PAGE 5

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Holding that freedom of expression is an essential component of democracty, CPI(M) stalwart V S Achuthanandan expressed serious concern over the intolerance shown by certain political quarters towards cartoons and caricatures in recent times. Referring to the row over Sahankar's and R K Laxman's cartoons reproduced in textbooks, he said attacking cartoons and cartoonists did not augur well for a healthy democracy. He was delivering the inaugural address at a discussion on "Lakshman rekha for cartoons?"

CHENNAI: Criticising the cartoon on anti-Hindi agitation in NCERT textbook for "hurting" the sentiments of Tamils, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today joined the chorus demanding its removal. "The Dravidian movement should have been explained to students using photographs of that era as they would be the best tool for this purpose and instead carrying a cartoon saying the Tamil student was not required to study Hindi and that he was ignorant towards English has hurt the sentiments of Tamil people," she said in a statement here.

NEW DELHI: Seven years ago, British prime minister Tony Blair was accused in the House of Commons of taking "more positions than in the Kamasutra " in a debate on the European Union. Blair while replying said the main thing was to have a political debate about the future of Europe and that he looked forward to the participation of the member who had made the charge "in whatever position he finds acceptable. " In the Indian Parliament, even a reference to the ancient text by Vatsyayana would have been considered a blasphemy, just as the controversy over Babasaheb Ambedkar cartoon turned out to be. Over the sixty years of Parliament, the list of words and expressions declared unparliamentary at some point has raised eyebrows, sometimes of parliamentarians themselves.

Those who criticise cartoons are all casteists, whether they realise this or not, whether they swear by Ambedkar or at him. Cartoons use humour, graphic art, innovative language, symbols and allusion, to comment, critique and hold the powerful to account. Cartoons are irreverent; they question authority and help overturn the status quo. Cartoons complement, often more powerfully and more evocatively, written editorial critique in the mediation of information and ideas among different sections and layers of the nation's polity.

NEW DELHI: Taking toons away from textbooks is a move akin to banishing discussion from classrooms, schoolteachers and students say. Visuals in textbooks stimulate debate. Without them, you get a boring book at best. At worst, you have a batch of students incapable of critical thinking or humour. "Cartoons are a part of the education process whose objective is to help kids think independently and critically," says Suman Kumar, principal, Bluebells School International. She argues that cartoons allow for the expansion of a lesson and create a healthy classroom atmosphere.

NEW DELHI: Even as noisy MPs continued to demand a ban on cartoons of politicians in NCERT textbooks in Lok Sabha , a lone voice struck a different chord. National Conference MP from Baramulla Sharifullah Shariq said politicians should introspect instead of criticising the cartoons. "Except in rare cases where a cartoon denigrates leader like Nehru or Ambedkar, why banish political cartoons altogether ?" Shariq said. The NC leader said Kashmiri leaders, including Sheikh Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah, have always taken cartoons about them sportingly.

NEW DELHI: The prospect of political cartoons going out of textbooks is a dangerous one. Lessons will become drab again. Worried scholars say the move could signal a devastating reversal in what was nothing short of a revolution in textbook-writing in India. Besides, an HRD ministry panel had vetted and cleared the text books, they say. A beleaguered NCERT, which designed and published the books, has set up a committee to review social science textbooks for classes IX-XII to identify what an NCERT official calls "educationally inappropriate" material.

The controversy over a cartoon in an NCERT textbook sends a chill down the spine as it shows the extent to which the culture of intolerance has eaten into the vitals of our democratic polity. The cartoon in question shows B R Ambedkar sitting on a snail (Constitution) and flogging it while Jawaharlal Nehru too is brandishing a whip standing behind Ambedkar. It is clear that he is also aiming his whip at the snail. The cartoon was drawn by the legendary K Shankar Pillai, one of India's best known and most revered cartoonists, and was published on August 28, 1949, in Shankar's Weekly.

New Delhi: School textbooks will not feature any 'offensive' political cartoon, the government assured on Monday, days after a 1949 cartoon of Dalit icon Ambedkar in a political science text rocked Parliament. The government has ordered an inquiry to identify NCERT officials responsible for inclusion of the Ambedkar cartoon in the textbook, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said in the Lok Sabha. "I found that a number of cartoons were inappropriate...a review of all textbooks of political science as well as a general review of all books of NCERT should be undertaken to ensure that inappropriate material is excluded from these textbooks," Sibal said, adding, "a large number of depictions...are offensive and inappropriate.

Shiv Visvanathan Babasaheb Ambedkar is one of the most fascinating figures in Indian politics. In hagiographic terms, if Gandhi is the father of the nation, Ambedkar is father of the Indian Constitution. Both have a legendary status which inspires hagiolatry. Any critique of them is seen as iconoclastic. Gandhians tend to put Gandhi in moth balls in their Ashrams. Dalits similarly tend to freeze Ambedkar, disallowing the slightest controversy. Strangely Hindu gods are allowed more leeway and more plural narratives, but not our political heroes.